Creamed Spinach, Starbucks, and Hairspray

August 24, flying day, finally came around. I flew Denver to Chicago to Zurich to Vienna. I saw IGE Director Kevin at the airport, along with his "assistant" Colin, who was a student on the program last year.

I was flying Swiss Air from Chicago to Zurich. To give a little background, the last time I flew Swiss Air, I was about 9 and my sister was about 6. The meal included this cooked, creamed spinach that was in a word... digusting. I can't really describe it, but think of the slimiest glob of goo in the world that is Oscar the Grouch green. It's also slightly cold and flavorless. Anyway, they put a pile of that on our plates, and the flight attendants decided to take it upon themselves to be "good parental figures" to my sister an I, and wouldn't take away our plates until we ate it. We of course appealed to Dad, who took one bite of the stuff and promptly spit it out in his coffee cup. That's where we ended up hiding the rest of it so the flight attendants would take it away.

Everyone in my family was lauging about that when they found out I was taking Swiss Air. I didn't worry too much about because what's the odds of the airline even feeding you at all, let alone feeding you the same thing twice. You can probably already guess where this is going...

Lesson du Jour: Avoid the Swiss Air Creamed Spinach like the Plague. Seriously. I was eating pasta, which seemed safe, and underneath the pasta was a layer of that vile stuff. I guess that's karma or something.

But, to Swiss Air's credit, both of my checked bags made it to through all those connections without a problem.

Coffee-lovers - you're in luck. I can make Vienna seem less like landing in a foreign country with one word: Starbucks. A little background of why this came up.

I made it to the Europahaus, our student dorm, and unpacked. I had a little time to kill afterwards, so I decided to go to one of the big shopping streets downtown (more on those later) to get the essentials: Starbucks and Hairspray. It took me about an hour each way to get the Starbucks and hairspray, but it was totally worth it. (In case you're wondering, it's the Starbucks that's hard to find. However, Vienna does have 5 of them downtown, so if you like your coffee, this is a good place to be... especially because Vienna introduced coffee to the Western World, so it's home to some of the best coffee houses you can find anywhere.)

walk somewhere on your first day. Let's be honest: I really didn't need hairspray. The Starbucks is debatable... Anyway, in case your wondering (Mom), No I do not consider Starbucks a sight seeing stop or a destination. What was important was the act of getting up, getting some fresh air, and moving a bit. It keeps you awake, and it is a good way to fight jet lag.